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Wednesday, December 31, 2014

In 2009 (Sometimes even I can't believe how long I've been writing this blog!), I wrote a post that illustrated the results of my published papers. Most people may or may not realize that I'm an active scientist who works on the evolution and diversity of asteroids (aka starfish or sea stars). And even when I tell them.. most folks don't really SEE what it is that I've done.

Part of my research involves TAXONOMY. The description and classification of different species. Biologists who are specialists in taxonomy are present for all organismal groups-from folks who work on protists and fungi to insects, parasitic worms, dinosaurs and the list goes on.

Sadly, the ranks of scientists who practice any kind of taxonomy is shrinking. Why? There are a multitude of reasons that have been offered...
-the need to work on research that secures larger funding sources
-the lack of universities that continue to teach organismal coursework
-the absence of perceived importance of taxonomic research
-changes in the basic pace and emphases of evolutionary research..

In the time since I've started my professional career, I've described (as of Sept. 2014) aroudn 30 new species (plus some new genera), I have about 3 dozen publications and I oversee the World Asteroidea Database.

Most of these are present in the Goniasteridae-one of the most diverse groups in the Asteroidea and thankfully, a group that I know a thing or two about.....

What I hope to accomplish here is to give some substance to my accomplishments and a tangible sense (limited by the fact that they are pictures of course!) of what diversity remains to be found. And what sorts of animals have been described only in the last few years!

And many more remain to be discovered..

Some various miscellany that you may notice.. So some answers to anticipated questions..

Yes. I do occasionally name species to honor people who have supported or contributed to echinoderm research.

No. I wouldn't name a species after myself. That's considered poor form within the profession...

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Today.. a short instructional on tropical "cushion stars" which is a common name I HATE because it just describes so many different types of sea star species.. BUT if any one starfish species COULD be the "rightful" bearer of THIS common name, its the one called Culcita.

Why? Because its name is LITERALLY translated as "pillow or cushion" but for comparison, there's another similar looking beast called Halityle regularis. I see the two mistaken for one another all the time.. so here's the two genera for comparison...

This one is Halityle regularis. One species known, widely occurring from the Indian Ocean (Madagascar) to southern Japan (the Ryukyu Islands) and Australia and New Caledonia.

Interestingly, there are two colors I've seen on Flickr... This red one from Indonesia.

Haltyle has a very strongly defined net-like diamond pattern on the top surface and with the distinct colored region on the oral sufrace...

Here is Culcita!
In terms of appearance, Culctia is a bit chubbier, and more compact, but the patterns on the surfaces are more cloud-like and are not as distinct.

Especially on the oral surface, which depending on species is a bit rougher, almost spiny

Culcita has THREE species, C. schmideliana from the Indian Ocean and C. coriacea, which is known primarily from the Oman region and finally the most widely occurring species C. novaeguineae which is found all over the Indo-Pacific. But mostly the Pacific.

Here is the Indian ocean species, Culctia schmideliana which is distinguished by the very large, dark granules/nodules on the body surface..

As with all the species, there appears to be some variation in color and degree of granular presence...

Culcita coriacea from the Gulf of Oman...These seem to have these larger dark regions and without the large granules but a more overall even surface..

And finally, the most widespread species in the Pacific Culcita novaeguineaeC. novaeguineae is HIGHLY variable.. it comes in MANY colors throughout its very wide range, in the Pacific, including Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, New Caledonia, and elswhere....which suggests it is possibly a bunch of cryptic species...

Surface on these is largely covered by granules or tiny spinelets....None of which seem to get very large.

Some, such as this Japanese individual have tiny spinelets...

Based on Flickr photographer "Nemo's great uncle", the Japanese name "マンジュウヒトデ饅頭" roughly translates into "steamed bun starfish".

Mmmm...steamed bun... Awesome...

Colors in this species are HIGHLY variable.. what is the significance? Different species? Different food? Simple random variation??

More RED spines!! (Thailand)

Some interesting color contrast between the top and oral (bottom) surfaces..

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Every once in awhile, I think that I might finally have run out of stuff to share with people and THEN something magic happens. Some fantastic new video or pic pops up and WOO! The diversity of echinoderms and the infinite resourcefulness of the Internet pop out of nowhere with some magic NEW biology to share!!

Case in point is this video, which was shot by "Dive Yos" showing various cool inverts spotted during a dive in Bali. The video was posted 2 months ago...

It starts with a few typical things, a sea anemone, sea horses, etc. a lot of typical fare...but then we see one, two, four heart urchins, six... and then at 0:27 into the video? BOOOM!!! You got this HUGE heart urchin stampede!!!

Best as I can tell, these are the heart urchin, Maretia planulata, described by Lamarck in 1816. This species of urchin lives throughout the tropical Indo-Pacific, from Tanazania to the Marshall islands...

They live in relatively shallow water on the surface of sandy bottoms.

But the thing is, Maretia is a heart urchin (aka a spatangoid). They are sediment feeders, so they don't really eat kelp. I suppose the absence of some predator might be the cause. And the huge numbers could STILL deplete food in a given region, but this high abundance seems to be a regular thing.

I would love to know more about whatever is going on here. Or maybe this will be the beginning of someone's Phd thesis? Don't know. But the thought of 100s (thousands?) of these things galloping along the bottom of the Indo-Pacific sandy bottoms is just... farking AMAZING!

Monday, December 1, 2014

Bonjour once again!! So, my trip to Paris has all but ended and I'll be returning to the United States in a few days. The trip has been a challenging one. The laptop crashed and was out of the loop for two weeks and left me without a computer for data collection and etc..

So, much of my trip has been "old school".. working with paper and notes labelling jars with species names as best as I can...

Although data collection has not been as efficient as I like, I have done the Paris Museum (my host) some good by identifying a massive number of specimens in the collection...

I not only got through many of these older specimens but several of the newer ones as well...

All said and done, I've identified around 900 specimen lots for the museum. Given that Paris probably contains the largest collections of asteroids in the world, that is no small feat!!

Its noteworthy not only for the fact that he used an exhaustive amount of genetic data, but he was able to sample and identify ALL the brittle stars necessary for the study! Not an easy feat when you can count the total number of brittle star taxonomy experts in the world on one hand!

Here is Tim giving the presentation to a full room of French scientists and colleagues (myself included) in the Paris Museum...

The important part of ALL of Tim's work is being able to identify all of these strange, deep-sea brittle stars from distant parts of the world... and he was happy to share several of these with me...

1. Amphiophiura insolita!! Don't know much about it, but its got a spectacular rose-like disk pattern...

This specimen of Amphiophiura bakeri was huge! Almost 2 cm across! It looked like an egg had grown five arms!

2. These two different species of the deep-sea Ophiomusium make it easy to see why brittle stars are so difficult to work with and identify.

3. The tiny male living on the large female Ophiosphaera insignis!! Notice all the white arrows.. Those point out the arms of the tiny, smaller male. He lives on the female.

Its unusual for there to be two distinct sexes in echinoderms. In this case, it is thought that this might be a pattern similar to that observed in anglerfish. The male is essentially a parasite on the female.

Its certainly freaky enough that its hard to believe that the picture really captures what the animal looks like, so here's an actual specimen. Its only a few cm across..

Here's one museum specimen, which as treated with metal for scanning electron microscopy...Its still kind of a surreal looking animal....

5. A related brittle star is this genus, Ophiotholia, which differs in having funny little hooks on its spines...but has a more distinctly conical disk and specimens are always found with arms locked upwards.

About Me

I pursue starfish related adventure around the world with a critical eye and an appreciation for weirdness.
Support has been courtesy of the National Science Foundation but the views and opinions presented herein are mine and do not reflect the opinions of them or any affiliated institutions.
Need to hire an invertebrate zoologist/marine biologist? Please contact me!